Base rates are easy to agree. Accessorials are where quotes and invoices quietly drift apart: a sort that was never priced, an after-hours receipt nobody flagged, pallets supplied but not counted. Below is a working checklist of the common charges, what triggers each one, the unit it is usually billed in and the record you need to back it up.
What are warehouse accessorial charges?
A warehouse's base rates cover the predictable work: receiving a standard pallet, storing it, picking it, shipping it. Accessorials cover everything that varies by shipment or customer. They are legitimate, but only if three things are true:
- The charge is on the rate card or the signed quote, with its unit and trigger spelled out.
- The trigger actually happened, and someone recorded it at the time.
- The invoice line matches the record: same quantity, same unit, same rate.
Miss the first and the customer will dispute the charge. Miss the second and you cannot defend it. Miss the third and the charge either never gets billed or gets billed wrong.
What are the common warehouse accessorial charges?
The table lists the charges that show up on most 3PL rate cards, what triggers each one, the unit it is usually billed in, and what your team should record so the charge holds up. We have deliberately left out prices: rates vary too much by region, facility and customer volume for a single number to be useful. Set yours from your own labor cost and margin target (the 3PL quote margin calculator helps), or see our container unloading cost guide for planning ranges on devans.
| Charge | What triggers it | Typically billed per | What to document |
|---|---|---|---|
| Receiving (non-standard) | Inbound that is not a clean, labeled, single-SKU pallet: mixed pallets, loose cartons, missing ASN | Pallet, carton or hour | ASN vs. actual, receipt report, OS&D notes, photos |
| Devanning / container unload | Floor-loaded or palletized container unloaded at the dock | Container, by size and load type; sometimes per carton | Container number, size, load type, carton and SKU count, start and finish times |
| Palletizing | Loose freight built onto pallets | Pallet built | Pallet count, pallet height, wrap |
| Pallets supplied | Warehouse provides pallets (new or used) | Pallet | Quantity and grade (for example new GMA vs. used) |
| Sort and segregate | Mixed freight separated by SKU, lot, PO or destination | Container, SKU above a threshold, or hour | Number of SKUs or lots, packing list, time spent |
| Labeling and relabeling | Cartons or pallets need labels the shipper did not apply (SKU, FBA, retailer, country of origin) | Label or carton | Label count, label type, customer instruction |
| After-hours, weekend, holiday | Receiving or shipping outside posted hours at the customer's request or due to customer lateness | Event or hour, as a surcharge | Arrival time, request email, staff hours |
| Storage minimum | Monthly storage charges fall below the agreed minimum | Month | Storage calculation, minimum in the contract |
| Handling in / handling out | Pallet or carton moved into or out of storage | Pallet or carton, in and out | Inbound and outbound counts by date |
| Pick and pack | Orders picked at carton or each level and packed | Order plus each or line | Order count, units, lines, packaging used |
| Packaging materials | Warehouse supplies boxes, dunnage, mailers | Item or order | Material used per order |
| Kitting and assembly | Components combined into kits or bundles | Kit or hour | Kit count, bill of materials, time |
| Cross-dock | Freight moved from inbound to outbound without going into storage | Pallet, carton or shipment | In and out times, counts, BOLs both sides |
| Outbound loading | Floor-loading cartons into a trailer, or load bars, straps, seals | Trailer, pallet or carton | Trailer number, seal number, load type |
| Truck detention / layover pass-through | The warehouse pays a carrier for waiting time caused by the customer (late paperwork, unready freight) | As invoiced by the carrier, plus any admin fee in the contract | Driver in and out times on the BOL, the cause, the carrier invoice |
| Lumper / unloading service | Warehouse labor unloads a live truck (not a container devan), where the rate card treats this as extra to receiving | Truck, pallet or hour, billed to the party agreed in advance | Who required the help, who agreed to pay, receipt |
| Rework and repack | Damaged cartons repacked, product inspected, inner packs changed | Hour or unit | Customer approval, count, before and after photos |
| Inventory counts | Physical or cycle counts the customer requests beyond the standard schedule | Hour, location or count event | Request, count sheets, variance report |
| Special handling | Oversize, overweight, fragile, temperature-sensitive or high-value goods | Pallet, unit or surcharge | Item attributes, equipment used, extra time |
| Hazmat handling | Regulated hazardous materials received, stored or shipped | Pallet, shipment or surcharge | SDS on file, labels and placards checked, segregation location |
| Photos, reports, special documentation | Customer asks for photos, data or paperwork beyond the standard receipt | Request or item | The request and what was delivered |
| Disposal and returns processing | Damaged or unsaleable goods destroyed, or returns inspected and restocked | Unit, pallet or hour | Authorization, counts, disposal certificate if any |
A note on lumper fees
Federal law says that when a shipper or receiver requires a truck driver to get help loading or unloading, the shipper or receiver must either provide that help or pay the motor carrier's costs for it, and it bans coercing a for-hire carrier into loading or unloading or paying others to do so (49 U.S.C. 14103). In practice, if your warehouse is the receiver and requires its own crew to unload, do not make the driver pay for it at the door. Put the charge on your customer's rate card, agree in advance who pays, and keep a receipt in the job file.
Ocean detention is not your charge
Detention and demurrage on ocean containers are billed by the ocean carrier, terminal or NVOCC, and those invoices have their own federal rules. A warehouse should not mark them up as its own accessorial. What a warehouse can do is keep the timestamps that help its customer dispute them. See detention vs. demurrage.
How should accessorials be written on a rate card?
Every accessorial needs four things written down, or it will cause an argument later:
- Name the customer will recognize (not an internal code).
- Trigger: the specific event that makes it apply. "After-hours: any receipt that starts after 5pm or on Saturday at the customer's request."
- Unit: per pallet, per carton, per label, per hour, per event. State minimums and how partial hours round.
- Rate, and the date it was last changed.
A customer receives one 40ft floor-loaded container with 12 SKUs, delivered at 6pm. The quote was a flat devan rate. Using made-up rates to show the structure, not market prices:
- Devan, 40ft floor-loaded: 1 × $500 = $500
- Pallets supplied: 21 × $12 = $252
- Sort and segregate, 12 SKUs: 1 × $150 = $150
- SKU labels on 21 pallets: 21 × $2 = $42
- After-hours receiving: 1 × $150 = $150
Invoice total: $1,094. If only the devan line makes it onto the invoice, $594 of the work is unbilled, more than the devan itself. That gap is why accessorials have to be captured on the job, not reconstructed at month end.
To set up the structure, our guide to the 3PL rate card covers layout and naming, and the 3PL rate card builder gives you a downloadable CSV template with accessorial rows already in place.
How do you make sure accessorials actually get billed?
Run this check on every job before the invoice goes out. Print it for the receiving desk, or use it as the definition of "job complete" in your WMS.
At quote
On the dock
Before invoicing
The full audit process, including how to sample past invoices for missed charges, is in how to audit accessorial charges before invoicing. For the inbound side, pair it with the warehouse receiving checklist.
How do you keep accessorial disputes down?
- No surprises. If a charge is likely, put it on the quote, even as "if applicable." Customers dispute what they did not expect more than what they did not like.
- Evidence attached. Send the photo, the timestamp or the email with the invoice for anything unusual.
- Same names everywhere. The charge name on the rate card, the quote, the WMS and the invoice should match exactly.
- Review the card yearly. Rates set three years ago on old labor costs quietly erode margin on every job.
Rapid Ai 10x is built around the rate card. Adriana quotes from it, accessorials included, so after-hours, pallets, labels and sorting are on the quote before the freight arrives, and a person approves every quote before it goes out. When the job is done, Chloe reads the completed work against the customer's rates and flags charges that are missing from the invoice before it reaches QuickBooks. See how Adriana and Chloe work.
Sources
- 49 U.S.C. 14103: Loading and unloading motor vehicles
- 46 CFR Part 541: Demurrage and Detention Billing Requirements
Figures from these sources are cited where they appear. Anything not cited is labeled as an assumption, a planning range or an illustrative example. How we write and check these guides.
Update log
- Published.